Coleman and Smart set for one last ride
Player, coach hope journey ends with run to Final Four
AUSTIN — The wiry eighth grader looked so confident on the court. Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart loved that about Matt Coleman.
The kid wasn’t impressive in stature. Didn’t have a mixtape filled with dazzling 360s or ankle-snapping crossovers. But Coleman was quick and savvy and tenacious. He played with the demeanor of a floor general and enough of a shoulder chip to compensate for not being a rim-destroying athlete like Russell Westbrook or ball-on-a-string marksman like Steph Curry.
Smart and Coleman soon became thick as thieves after meeting on the AAU circuit and planned to join forces at VCU in 2017.
But Smart couldn’t pass up an offer from Texas to replace Rick Barnes in April 2015, and the spindly middle schooler-turned-Oak Hill Academy (Va.) standout’s future soon became hazy.
He had a decision to make. He could stay on the East Coast and play for coach Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, or follow Smart to Austin. On Jan. 16, 2017, Coleman committed to Texas.
“When you’re a kid coming out of high school, and a program like that wants you and a coach like that,” Smart said. “I mean it takes, it takes a special type of guy to say, ‘No, I’m gonna do something different.’
“And he did that, and he believed in us and our program. And I’m just so happy that he’s being able to live out what we talked about during the recruiting process and what we’ve talked about over these last three years.”
Through it all, Coleman has grown into the most important member of the best Texas team Smart has assembled. He’s an essential reason that the Longhorns (19-7) earned a No. 3 seed in the East Region, setting up a first-round matchup Saturday against No. 14 seed Abilene Christian (23-4).
Last week in the Big 12 tournament, the 6-foot-2 senior had 19 points, six assists and hit the game-winning free throws in the quarterfinals against Texas Tech. Two days later, Coleman popped for 30 points on 10for-14 shooting in a 91-86 win over Oklahoma State, securing the program’s first postseason conference championship since 1995.
“Nobody knows how much it means for myself and for coach,” said Coleman, honored as the Big 12 tournament’s most outstanding player. “Just since I was in eighth grade, as soon as I stepped foot on campus — man, we’ve had our ups and our downs, but nothing compares and I wouldn’t trade anything. No teammate, no coach; I wouldn’t trade coach Smart for the world. I just appreciate him just sticking with me since Day One. And I’m glad that we have something to show for it.”
Coleman didn’t expect to wait so long to return to the NCAA tournament. Dropping 25 points in that losing effort to Nevada three years ago still lingers on his mind. But at least he didn’t have to endure losing a first-round game on a half-court buzzer-beater, as Smart’s Longhorns did against No. 11 seed Northern Iowa in 2016.
Both are still searching for a defining March moment. The Big 12 championship run in Kansas City was a compelling start, but Coleman and Smart have higher aspirations in what might be their final games together.
“As a high schooler ... you come to college — this is what you want,” Coleman said. “You want to be able to compete for a national title, to play in March.
“My freshman year we lost in overtime, and I just, I want to grow from that, you know, I want to survive and advance and move forward and have opportunity to just keep winning and competing for something bigger than a first-round exit.”
Even now, Smart and Coleman get into little tiffs. It’s more brotherly or paternal than outright nasty, always steeped in respect built up over nearly a decade.
And Smart has learned that a precise touch is required with Coleman. There’s an occasional moodiness to the point guard’s game, flipping from joyous focus to disjointed funk in a blink. So sometimes the coach becomes the psychologist.
“I’ve learned over the years it’s a balance between squeezing more, but then also letting him be him,” Smart said after last Saturday’s championship game win. “There was a play in the first half where he scored, and then he ran back on defense and then jumped up in the air like a deer, just kind of randomly. And that’s when you know he’s really good, when he’s just playing with this joy.
“Sometimes that is the opposite of squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. I’m a squeeze guy, but he’s not me. So you just have to be supportive of making sure he’s confident, making sure he understands the details of the game that he needs to honor.”
All these years later, Coleman still brims with the same confidence Smart found so intriguing during their first meeting.
Now, 10 years after Smart led VCU to the Final Four, he and Coleman hope to make some history of their own.